The Pixar’s RenderMan Now Free for Non-Commercial Useby Chuck Rau

Pixar Animation Studios, the same company that brought us the amazingly life-like and be-loved characters in movies such as “Toy Story,” “Monsters, Inc.,” “Cars,” “The Incredibles,” “Ratatouille,” “WALL•E,” “Up,” “Brave” and more, has announced major advances to their rendering architecture and restructuring of their pricing model to allow RenderMan to be free for non-commercial use, and only $495 per license for commercial use.

The free, non-commercial license of RenderMan will be available for use by students, institutions, researchers, developers and even personal use. It will not contain any watermarks, time restrictions or feature reductions. This is a result of Pixar’s commitment to the advancement of open standards and practices, but the price point may not even be the most important news.

The latest innovations affect how film imagery is rendered and accessed and establishes a new modular architecture. An advanced Unidirectional Path Tracer and a Bidirectional Path Tracer with Progressive Photon Mapping are among the multiple state of the art algorithms employed to provide highly-optimized methods of simulating the transport of light.

An increase in speed for previews and rendering is an ever-important enhancement. Physically-based, artistic-friendly workflows, progressive re-rendering and the already established advantages of RenderMan’s traditional REYES architecture are just some of the feature and performance enhancements. Offering two rendering modes within one unified environment, RenderMan provides the most advanced, versatile and flexible rendering system available.

The new version is going to be released in August, around SIGGRAPH 2014, and will offer customized peak render packages for “burst render” capability. Combining the functionality of the previously separate RenderMan Pro Server and RenderMan Studio packages, artist and batch render assets will be allocated with unmatched flexibility in the new RenderMan release.

For more information or to register for the upcoming free release, visit: http://www.pixar.com/

IN THIS ISSUE:• The Pixar’s RenderMan Now

Free for Non-Commercial Use

• 8th FullDome Festival Marked by Diversity and Mastery

• The 8th Jena FullDome Festival 2014- 8 Highlights and Trends

• Remembering Pearl Reilly

SUMMER 2014

Exclusive Partner

A Message from Chuck Rau With conference season in full swing, I look forward to continuing to see many of you in person at the various regional conferences. These are wonderful opportunities to exchange ideas and grow personal and professional friendships with other talented individuals. These events offer far more than vendor demos and sales pitches. Of course as a vendor, I’d love to have you engaged in one of my presentations, but to be able to gather with others in the field to compare notes on operational or presentation techniques, both learning from and teaching your peers is immeasurable.

It is always exciting for me to watch someone experience the realization that they are not alone in this field. We are a community made up of people inspired by looking up at the night sky. Whether that inspiration springs forth from under a dome, through a telescope, in the back yard, at a conference or all of the above, we all love to see that inspiration grow in others…patron, participant and presenter alike.

Chin up, eyes open, there’s a whole universe to explore.

-Chuck Rau

8th FullDome Festival Marked by Diversity and Mastery With exactly 100 contributions from 20 nations, the 8th FullDome Festival at the Jena Zeiss Planetarium can once more claim to be the greatest international event of its kind. From May 22nd to the 24th, 2014, the festival drew hundreds of media mavens from academia, planetarium staff, fulldome producers, artists, students, dealers and many people simply curious about the immersive medium of 360-degree dome projection. Attendees at the Jena Planetarium witnessed a multi-faceted demonstration of the present state of the expanding medium and its development trends. Fulldome stands for a variety of themes, among them education-oriented contents (not surprisingly in a chiefly astronomical context), immersive art forms as well as entertaining and mind-altering movies. Young producers and novices met professionals and old hands on an equal footing. Exchange of experience over a glass of beer is a standard ingredient of Jena’s FullDome Festival just as well as the festive Gala at which the internationally coveted “Janus” trophy is awarded to the best festival contributions entered.

Première of Kometentanz The eve of the festival saw a rousing line-up with the world première of Paul Scheerbart’s “Kometentanz” (dance of comets, in the author’s words, an “astral pantomime in two acts”), directed by Festival Director and Bauhaus University lecturer Prof. Micky Remann. Scheerbart’s fantastic text written in 1903, was considered not actable since Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler, balking at the daring spirit of Scheerbart’s libretto, declined the offer to set it to music. What then seemed impossible has finally, more than a hundred years later, been achieved by the digital fulldome projection theater, an instrument Scheerbart possibly anticipated at his time. With a bold synthesis of digital projection, sound design, choreographic and performance elements,

Projections StaffPlanetarium Sales Director Chuck RauPlanetarium Division Director Louise SchaperMarketing Coordinator Mollie ThompsonTechnical Administration Craig Morris Brian Wirthlin

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Image of Janus trophies ready to be handed to award winners

the comets’ dance was staged in a modern fashion. Twenty performers, among them the ZoManer theater troupe and the Vainno dance duo, mimed and danced to music by Ludger Nowak, Michael Holz and Rodrigo Diaz, interacting live with projected fulldome imagery designed by Florian Meyer, André Wünscher and students of the media department of the Weimar Bauhaus University. A brilliant multimedia performance, the feature had to be repeated to an enthusiastic audience on Sunday after the festival.

The Workshops and SAT Skype conference The morning hours of the three festival days were devoted to various workshops and presentations on fulldome topics. With a high share of international attendance, participants demonstrated and discussed issues and solutions of media design, quality standards, technical developments, interactive applications, and the efficient use of sound applications. A Skype conference with the Symposium ix of the Société des arts technologiques [SAT] held simultaneously in Montreal informed about the founding of the “International Fulldome Arts Alliance”. Dan Neafus for IMERSA (Immersive Media Entertainment Research Science and Art) and Micky Remann for the FullDome Festival, both in Jena, welcomed the initiative and agreed to join the new organization as charter members. The benefit of this networking for the international fulldome family is obvious.

The Full-length feature shows As in the previous year, 21 contributions had been accepted for the first category, visually. thematic fulldome shows. The number of commercialized fulldome shows lasting between about 20 and 50 minutes has been increasing from year to year. Therefore, the FullDome Festival had to restrict entries to productions less than one year, compared to two years before. Nevertheless, not all applications made it into the festival program, given the current abundance of fulldome productions. Criteria for the Festival Directors’ decision for or against nomination were quality standards and thematic as well as technical advancements. The contributions were evidence of the growing diversity of fulldome topics. The movies also prove that in the eighth year of the festival, the quality of the commercial productions still varies greatly. The differences are not all due to the production budget. What is striking is the quest for suitable recording techniques for fulldome videos with the technical capabilities not yet coming up to the level of computer-generated movies. The narrative realization of many fulldome shows is still largely oriented towards classical planetarium presentations. Unlike these, fulldome offers the chance to pack a subject into stories and narrate them in an entertaining and fascinating manner by dramaturgical means without losing sight of the educational aspect. Some shows reveal that new producers took the plunge into the fulldome arena for the first time and need to gather more experience.

About half of the shows can no longer be associated with the classical theme fields of planetariums. They bear witness to the fact that the fulldome medium is, or at least can be, a significant enrichment for planetariums. “Breath of Life,” a production from Brazil dealing with the origin of life, “Beyond the Arctic Circle” from Lithuania about the fauna in arctic regions, and “Harmonielehre,” from Canada, an attempt at visualizing music, are examples for the broadening of thematic horizons.

Topics in astronomy and space travel are also getting more varied, tend to refrain from abstract illustrations and increasingly integrate worlds of practical experience of their consumers. “Adrenalin Universe” by the Planetarium of Ostrava, Czech Republic, although with imperfections as to craft skills, employs live action to address the subject of gravitation and attract the attention of the generation of young adults. The winner of the Directors’ Award and a Janus, “Back to the Moon for Good” produced by Google Lunar XPRIZE and the National Space Centre Creative in Leicester, includes interviews and imagery of contesting teams participating in the space project and manages to raise the viewers’ emotion and enthusiasm about the contest. The easily understandable script and its visual implementation in an extremely skilful combination of fulldome video, 3D graphics and classical visual components convinced the Festival Directors. The prize also honors the private enterprise commissioned with the production.

Suited to children, entertaining for adults and in delightful 3D animation, the little dragon Tabaluga in the show of the same name is in search of time. This new show for children was created after an idea of, and with songs by, German rock star Peter Maffay. What convinced the Festival Directors was not only the uniqueness of combining a fact-finding topic – What is time? Where does it come from? Can you buy it?–with rock music and storytelling, but also that “Tabaluga”, produced by “the content dome“ in Hamburg, illustrates from the first to the last sequence what distinguishes the fulldome medium: the complete audiovisual involvement of the audience. This earned the show a Directors’ Award plus a Janus. With “Dark Universe,” the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York gained an Image of the little dragon Tabaluga from the 3D show “Tabaluga”

Honorable Mention for the excellent visualization of modern scientific data. The show takes up the strange phenomenon of red shift, illustrating it by means of 3D animations, and elucidates how the cosmic expansion affects the event horizon so that we cannot observe the entire universe.

Short films advancing The FullDome Festival 2014 saw its biggest increase in the category of short films. It took two evenings to present the 49 contributions, each between barely two and fifteen minutes long. Whereas the main interest of the feature films is on their commercial utilization, the opposite is true for the short films. Considerable shares of them are made specifically for occasions like the Jena FullDome Festival. Some are created by students and lecturers; others take up individual ideas and implement them with eagerness to experiment and cheerful naivety. There is a great diversity of subjects and means, ranging from real film shots for dome projection to the informal visualization of music.

The Society of Arts and Technology submitted a number of art projects created for their own dome in Montreal. For the first time, Russian art films featured notably. “Gopal, Prince of the Cows’ Planet” and “Himalayan Dreams” both produced by Fulldome.Lab, ranked prominently with the Jena audience. The team of NSC Creative won one of the five Honorable Mentions of the festivals for “Tomorrow Town,” a production commissioned by Schindler Ltd., once more confirming its status as a top-rank fulldome factory. The film shows concepts of future urban development and appropriate passenger transportation systems.

The second Honorable Mention for a short film was earned by Ralph Heinsohn. The designer from Hamburg, who had won an award already at last year’s FullDome Festival, contributed “Frida und der Wald” (Frida and the Forest), an entertaining piece for children. Frida, an engagingly animated toy caterpillar made of oak, narrates about its origin and the importance of trees and forest. This is a film that is hoped to supplement the children’s programs of many planetariums.

The third Honorable Mention for a short film went to Finland. Stylistically, “Kilpisjärvellä” by Mark Lwoff and Misha Jaari from Helsinki represents a new low key type of fulldome film. The authors narrate their film in a deliberately restrained language to show what it means for two cameramen to rove the tundra in order to shoot polar lights. They have to work hard to weather the vicissitudes of everyday life among snow and ice. The film accompanies them and lets the audience experience the reward of their exertions.

The winner of the “Altered Mind Award,” sponsored by Marcus Beyr and the Sphere of Light Award with prize money of 500 Euro, is another short film: “Echolocation,” a coproduction by André Wünscher (Develtainment), Lawrence Curtis (CATACEA, Curtis Films Inc.), Mark Fischer (Aguasonic) and Micky Remann (Liquid Sound), takes the audience to the submarine realm. In a sensuous mix of animated sub aqua scenes, visualized whale songs and real dolphin shots in water flooded with light, viewers feel transported to another world – a world emanating calm and energy. With the award, the international jury paid tribute to the film addressing an issue that is but inadequately described by the conventional term of environmental projection.

The Students’ Night In 2014, the “Students’ Night” was a highlight of the FullDome Festival. Although the number of entries fell short of the abundance in previous years, the student contributions did not lack in diversity and mastery. Student productions from the U.S. (Ringling College of Art), China (Tongji University), Poland (Torun University) and Lithuania (Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre) made it into the festival program besides contributions from the seasoned German universities in Weimar, Potsdam, Offenbach, Darmstadt and Braunschweig.

The jury, comprising German media experts and fulldome specialists from the U.S. and Italy, had the demanding task of selecting the winners of the “Creative Award” and the “Performance Award”. They unanimously conferred the former on Tim Seger’s “BEAT” (Offenbach University of Art and Design). Transported from the dull daily grind into a dream world, the film’s protagonist shakes off his restraints under the experience of rhythm and beat.

The jury’s decision regarding the Performance Award was unanimous, too. Flávio Bezerra, Eduard Tucholke and Laura Saenger of the Braunschweig University of Arts, with collaboration by Sascha Kriegel (Wolfsburg Planetarium), earned a Janus with their “Um Menino,” a

Image from children’s piece “Frida und der Wald”

lavish, excellently staged production. Um Menino, a Brazilian street boy gets lost in a dream world of circus and acrobats. The many actors interact with the virtual dream world to music by the Brazilian band Chimpanzés de Gaveta. Creative and Performance Awards include prize monies of 500 Euro each, donated by ZEISS. The same applies to the “Audience Award” exclusively intended for a student contribution. By a majority vote of the audience at the FullDome Festival Gala, that Janus was awarded to Robert Becker of the Potsdam University of Applied Science for “Die Wundertrommel” (The wonder drum). A giant zoetrope drum, hoisted into the dome and made to rotate, simulates the first moving pictures. The festival attendees rewarded the idea of the medium acting in the medium, together with the effective implementation.

Stirring up emotions, arousing enthusiasm, making us share fear, pity and joy is the quotidian business of the movie industry. In the fulldome medium, this most deeply human component is still less distinct. Musia Heike Bus, sponsor of the “Emphasis on Emotion Award,” has made it her concern to promote films that draw their strength from the ingredient of emotions. The majority of the jurors voted for the Chinese animation ”Nightmare” by Tingwen Liao, Ziqi Peng, Qing Wang, Baining Ku and Cheng Gu. The award, a Janus with 500 Euro in prize money, is on the way to the Tongji University in Shanghai.

Spatial Sound Productions For the second time, entrants in all categories of the FullDome Festival had the option to compete for a “Spatial Sound Award.” The surround-sound system at

the Jena Planetarium permits 3D sound effects, which competitors were asked to design, whether with images or without. Sound production, a matter of exactly positioning the sound sources in 24 channels, is quite a challenge for the artists. The two awards, which come with a pair of upmarket headphones each donated by Shure, were won by Stefan Berke and Jan Zehn (Ten Art Communications Jena) with “From the Jungle to the Stars,” and Christian Öhl and Philipp Boß, students at

the Offenbach and Darmstadt universities, respectively, with “Handmade.”

Thanks to all sponsors The international FullDome Festival is made possible by many sponsors in indus-try and other partners. The organizers wish to express their heartfelt thanks to all donors and sponsors for their commitment to the advancement of a medium the promising potential of which deserves further exploration.

The 8th Jena FullDome Festival 2014- 8 Highlights and TrendsThe annual FullDome Festival at the Zeiss-Planetarium Jena is a key event for pro-fessionals and activists in the emerging field of 360-degree immersive multimedia productions.

What are the trends and highlights emerging from the Jena meeting in May 2014? We have identified eight trends in the 8thFullDome Festival:

In Loving Memory of Pearl Reilly

Our dear friend Pearl Reilly passed away on June 27, 2014. Pearl worked at Seiler for 29 years before retiring in 2001. She will be remembered for her enthusiasm for all things Zeiss and for her dedication to serving the planetarium community. When Pearl’s name would come up at a confer-ence, anyone who knew her would immediately have a smile on their face. Please remember Pearl with a smile!

Reilly, Pearl L. (nee Durrer), 83 of Webster Groves, passed away June 27, 2014. Beloved wife for 63 years of Ernest M. Reilly; dear moth-er of Scott, Eric, and Kurt Reilly; loving grand-mother of Lindsay, Paige, and Sean Reilly. Pearl lovingly donated her body to St. Louis University School of Medicine. If desired contributions may be made to Webster Groves Presbyterian Church, 45 W. Lockwood, Webster Groves, Mo 63119.

We’d love to hear your favorite memories of Pearl! Please send them to: mthompson@seilerinst.com.

Image from “Handmade” from students at the Offenbach and Darmstadt universities

#1: More Interactivity in the DomeWhat seemed like a distant dream only a few years ago has become a reality: Fulldome shows are no longer limited to playback mode; they can be created and mixed live and in real time. Plug your computer into a special media server and watch how your content is adapted and displayed in the dome over any multi-channel projection system. Interactive games, presentations and real time appli-cations find their way into the dome, with good resolution and zero latency. This was reliably demonstrated by different teams at the Festival’s workshop presentations during the day and in a live VJ session at night.

Examples:

• Emanuel J. Zueger: How to display anything in any fulldome. At this year’s FullDome Festival a fulldome media server called VIOSO DOMEMASTER is in action that allows you to show any kind of fulldome footage without pre-slicing and displays interactive applications. • Anna Öst & Joakim Kilby (IXEL, Sveden): Multi-user interaction in the dome. • Robert Sawallisch, André Wünscher, Thomas Fritzsche: Fulldome Master Graduates from Bauhaus-University Weimar demonstrate interactive applications with the VIOSO DOMEMASTER system. • LiCHTPiRATEN: Audiovisual live installations and dome projections. Introduction of OMNIDO.ME for real-time content in the dome. • Interactive VJing the Dome: Pedro Zaz & Roger S., BlendyDome VJ. A new application developed by Studio Avante and the United VJs. It is a dome mapping tool and real time Domemaster slicer designed for Fulldome VJing. • Late night special: VJ Zaz & VJ Roger S. –United VJs Dancing in the Midnight

#2: Improved360-degree real film in the domeIn the past, trying to adapt the art of filmmaking to the dome environment could be tantalizing if not frustrating due to poor resolution of conventional cameras and rigs. With the emergence of new, high resolution 360-degree camera rigs, the time of filmmakers’ frustration is over. The festival audience witnessed a number of fulldome films which proved that quality, “real” footage has its place in the dome and is thriving as an art form.

Examples:

• HARVEST SEASON. Doreen Keck / HfG Offenbach (using a 6 camera rig) • ECHOLOCATION (with Lawrence Curtis underwater footage)

#3: Efficient Entertainment in the DomeFrom the early days of the FullDome Festival we observed non-scientific, post-astronomy shows knocking at the planetarium doors. Great works from students and independent artists have made that point very clear but were sometimes considered too experimental for mainstream planetarium audiences. That has changed radically with “Tabaluga,” based on a musical by German rock musician Peter Maffay, which was designed, produced and financed with the intention of bringing professional entertainment into the dome and attract enough paying (German speaking) visitors to recuperate the investment. In recognition of the courage to do so and because of the technical quality of the production, “Tabaluga” received the 2014 Directors Award.

• TABALUGA UND DIE ZEICHEN DER ZEIT. The Content Dome

#4: Impressive Science Visualization in the domeTo better attract planetarium-goers and to render science data even more comprehensible, there is a noticeable improvement in the quality and esthetic finesse of “classical” full feature length planetarium shows. “Dark Universe” from the American Museum of Natural History, New York, received an honorable mention for “Best in Science Visualization,” and a second Directors’ Award went to NSC Creative Leicester and Google Lunar XPRIZE for the full-length feature show “Back to the Moon for Good” featuring an outstanding script and excellent fulldome graphics.

#5: Exceeding Amazement in the DomeA core mission of the FullDome Festival has always been to encourage students to push the envelope of what’s possible in the dome. Three “Janus” Awards are given each year to honor innovation and creativity in students’ works. The winners in the 2014 contest each deserve the laurels, and together they demonstrate the continuing progress that has been made in the past years in creating more amazement in the dome and for the dome audiences.

• Creative Award: Tim Seger, Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach for the student contribution “BEAT”, decided by the FullDome Festival jury, endowed with 500 Euro, donated by ZEISS • Performance Award: Flávio Bezerra, Eduard Tucholke, Laura Saenger, Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig for the student contribution “UM MENINO”, decided by the FullDome Festival jury, endowed with 500 Euro, donated by ZEISS • Audience Award: Robert Becker, Fachhochschule Potsdam for the student contribution “Die Wundertrommel” (Zeotrope), voted by the audience of the Festival Gala, endowed with 500 Euro, donated by ZEISS

#6: Captivating Live Theatre in the DomeAt the 2012 FullDome Festival, performance artist Nina Wise granted a sneak preview of her “Kepler Project”, featuring the story of astronomer Johannes Kepler in a mix of live acting and dome projection. A year later, Nina’s show premiered to rave reviews at the California Academy of Sciences’ Morrison Planetarium in San Francisco.

Now, for the 2014 Festival, live acting in the Fulldome theatre took a giant leap ahead with the “Kometentanz” performance. The “Astrale Pantomime” by visionary writer Paul Scheerbart, published in 1903, was staged for the first time in a crossover of digital dome projection, dance, acting and music of the spheres. Stunning, sometimes bizarre, interactions of people and stars brought life to the notion of immersive Fulldome Theatre and paved the way to a new branch of artistic expression in the dome.

• Kometentanz

#7: Intensified International Networking in the DomeThe hundred or so fulldome shows submitted to the 2014 Festival came from twenty countries and delegates from as many countries gathered in a remarkably friendly atmosphere of unpretentious openness. This quality in our times has value in and of itself, but it finds a particularly strong expression in the fulldome community, be it in Jena or other hotspots. A key example was the Skype-exchange between the audiences of the Jena festival gala and the SAT International Symposium on immersive creativity in Montreal. In this public dome-to-dome conversation the foundation of the “International Fulldome Arts Alliance” (IFAA) was announced, with founding members on both ends of the line.

#8: Exciting Future in the DomeDome folks who regularly come to meet at the Jena Festival are privileged to not only witness and discuss but also to shape and influence what’s going on in the rapid evolution of Fulldome. This applies to the technology, the art, the business, the cultural impact and the sheer beauty of 360-degree immersive media and its multiple offspring.

The story continues because there is more where all that future came from!

Thus the date for the 9th Jena FullDome Festival is set for May 28th–30th 2015. Following the 2014 motto of “A Head in the Curve,” the special theme for 2015 will be “Romantic Circles”.

Not stopping there, the 10th Anniversary FullDome Festival 2016 is scheduled for May 26th-28th 2016 under the motto of “Frameless Frenzy.”

Stay tuned!

Image from Performance Award winner “UM MENINO”

Image from Audience Award winner “Die Wundertrommel”

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Upcoming EventsAug 13-15 LIPS (Live, Interactive Planetarium Symposium)-Mystic, CThttp://lipsymposium.org/LIPS/ LIPS 2014 will be hosted by the Mystic Seaport/Treworgy Planetarium in Mystic, CT from August 13-15, 2014. LIPS focuses on live, interactive planetarium lessons: connecting with your audience; enhancing performance skills; class-room management techniques; sample activities; etc.

LIPS’ goals include:

• To provide a participatory and practical professional development opportunity focusing on live presentations.

• To offer an opportunity to network with others doing live, interactive shows.

• To share information about available resources and products.

• To share ideas for improving programs: content, teaching tips, classroom management, etc.

• To explore what is required to start or improve an outreach program or business.

Sept 10-13 MAPS (Mid Atlantic Planetarium Society) – Baltimore, MD. http://www.mapsplanetarium.org/The 2014 MAPS conference will be hosted by the Maryland Science Center’s Davis Planetarium in Baltimore, MD on September 10-13, 2014.

Conference highlights:

• Presentations, workshops and programs under the same roof as the Vendor Exhibit Hall (all at MSC)

• Evening star party featuring MSC’s rooftop Observatory equipped with a computer-driven 8” Alvan Clark and Sons refractor

• NEW THIS YEAR – Extended Saturday conference activity

• Astronomy themed showcase using the “Science on a Sphere” projection system

• Bring your dancing shoes if so inclined – we’re closing the MAPS banquet on Fri night with some fun, live music for all to enjoy

(stay tuned for details on the band!)

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